Auto Zone Truck Exhaust Leaves Residents Fuming

Jim Spencer

July 09, 2000|By JIM SPENCER Daily Press

The tractor-trailer pulled in behind the Auto Zone on Hampton's West Mercury Boulevard on Thursday morning with the weekly load of inventory. As the staff unloaded the truck, it sat for 45 minutes with its engine idling. The pungent, sometimes sickening, smell of diesel exhaust wafted over the homes that adjoin the parking lot.

In his house on Adwood Drive, 75-year-old David Kersten fumed like an overheated motor.

"This is eating my guts up," Kersten said. "They won't shut the truck down because they say someone is sleeping inside. He may be comfortable. But I'm not comfortable with the fumes."

Neither is Kersten's neighbor, Tony Major. Both men thought that they had solved the problem of idling big rigs in their back yards years ago.

"For at least five years, there's not been a problem," Major said. "Then two months ago, it started again."

Sometimes, the truck idles while unloading, and sometimes, it doesn't. Major and Kersten say they have both called Auto Zone's regional office in Washington, D.C. Both said they were told there's nothing that the company can do.

The trucks have started using two-driver teams, called tandems, to make deliveries to up to six localities at a stretch, Auto Zone spokesman Eric Epperson explained. Sometimes, one driver sleeps, while the other drives.

Auto Zone might be able to schedule deliveries before business hours, so the tractor-trailer can park in front of the West Mercury store while it unloads, Epperson said. And if the off-duty driver is awake when the truck gets to Hampton, the truck will be shut off, as it was a week ago.

However, if one of the tandem drivers is asleep when the truck arrives in Hampton, "we leave the truck running," he said.

"The trips are weeklong rides," Epperson said. "The U.S. Department of Transportation requires drivers to get a certain amount of uninterrupted sleep." That means keeping the engine running to keep the air conditioning going. "Otherwise, it gets hot so fast without the air conditioning."

In the get-hot-fast department, Kersten is at the boiling point.

"I've lived here almost 20 years," he said. "We've cleaned up the area and kept it clean."

He can pick up litter from businesses that abut his property, but Kersten can do nothing to clean up air pollution.

The city of Hampton says it can't, either.

"The city doesn't have a law" dealing with idling engines, said Don Gurley of Hampton's Department of Codes Compliance.

In commercial or residential urban areas, engines of commercial or public vehicles can't be left running for more than three minutes once they're parked.

Some exceptions exist to that rule. For instance, "tour buses may idle for up to 10 minutes during hot weather in order to maintain power to the air- conditioning system." And "diesel-powered vehicles may idle for up to 10 minutes to minimize restart problems." Also, engines may run in parked vehicles if they provide "auxiliary power for other than heating or air conditioning."

Nevertheless, the regulations clearly state that in general, vehicles can't leave engines idling just to run air conditioners or heaters.

Auto Zone's transportation department takes the position that their truck engines generate power not only to the AC but to the lifts that raise and lower pallets of equipment, Epperson said. He admitted, however, that the lifts ran with the truck engine shut down a week ago.

Seems as if the state regulations should solve Kersten and Major's problem. But even if the legal staff at Auto Zone finds a way around them, the company needs to find a way to stop spewing noxious exhaust into people's back yards.